


Ad Finem

by Dusty_Forgotten (DustyForgotten)



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 18:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12612408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustyForgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: To the end.





	Ad Finem

Something sharp in her eyes— sharp as deathclaws. Simper smile on her cracking lips, throws back what’s left of the cola and tosses it off the cliff. Bottle glistens in the moonlight, and he counts the seconds before it shatters far, far below.

“Come on,” Six says, standing at the precipice of the Divide, “Mojave can wait.”

He’s got a stealth boy on his wrist, pocket lined with Med-X, and a belt lined with grenades. He can take the Courier’s Mile. He can take whatever the Courier can throw at him. 

Ulysses stands, and follows her ungraceful, unheavy footsteps. There’s paint on the walls: “ _ Go home, Courier. _ ” She drags her fingertips along the words. Takes a raincheck. She closes her eyes to the strobe of the flashing fluorescent, and he watches her, unblinking even in the dark.

They’re at the bottom, then, in the open maw of the Divide proper. Six turns, smiles at him. In the second it takes him to wonder if she wants a smile back, she’s galloping into the dust. Ulysses sprints after her— could pull ahead easily, if it were a race. That’s not what she wants. So he matches her pace, and in the space when their feet don’t touch pavement, they’re flying.

She grounds him with a skid: she’s got no stamina. By the highway now— what’s left of it. Courier walks ahead, face turned to the sky. 

“I love the stars, you know,” says, like he should, out of breath and using it as fast as she catches. So much she wants to say. “I could hardly see them back home. Too much radiation. Like the sky over Searchlight.”

He’s breathing fine. Ulysses is faster than she is— stronger, hardier, smarter. Doesn’t mean much to the Courier. She’s her. “Not many to see above the Divide. Dust has them smothered, snuffed like the lives here.” A shallow jab.

She apologizes— not to him, or to Hopeville, the Marked Men within. She apologizes to the stars, so far away they shouldn’t hear the whispered breath, but she’s the Courier. Of course they’re listening. “I didn’t know.” 

“Should have.” He’s being bitter. He has the right to be.

Six turns over her shoulder, eyes bright in the dark, an expression he knows best from old slaves. Resignation. “Should have.”

She turns back to the sky, gave him all he should need. It’s almost enough.


End file.
